And while there are still players down there believing all of Mayden’s lies and fairy tales, most of the players are figuring it out and leaving.

A player sent this explanation of what is happening to me via email:

Insight of National Urban Professional Baseball LeagueFrom the start of the season the players had to go out with sponsor packet forms to reach out to businesses for sponsorships. Though I have nothing against going to Church. Players were force to wear team jerseys, and force to go to church as part of the this “Community Outreach Program”. As you may know already the website for this league is trash which was made by Mayden himself. Probably the sloppiest web design I’ve ever seen. With a help of one of the players the website looks a little better, but Mayden is always adding and taking off things on the web page.The players have yet to be paid as our gross pay is $500 a month. We get $250 every 16th and 30th of the month till the end of the season as stated in our contract. It seemed odd to me that we had this team meeting about someone hacking into Mayden’s PayPal account, and other accounts associated with the league before we received our first paycheck. Recently Mayden has left back to Chicago IL for a funeral (June 18th) and won’t be back till Sunday (June 24th). He claims there are other workers working behind the scenes, but with the league falling apart we have yet to see any of these people other than Dr. Little (Which was in the beginning of the season) in helping to make this league succeed. I took a picture on my phone of the list of people “supposedly” working behind the scene before Mayden took it off the website. Also, Mayden randomly made a development league tab in regards of getting future prospects to come down to Laurel MS, and pay ($1,500) to be trained/developed by coaches (We don’t have any coaches). He later took this down, but I still took a picture of it. I would like to mention Mayden repeatedly been saying that everything we make from ticket sales and concession sales is profit. Which doesn’t make sense to me because Profit= Revenue- Cost. With everything we made so far he said he has been using it to pay the field off and for umpires ($100 per ump). This implies he is in debt. Which by the way we have no more umpires, we have players umpiring the game now because Mayden said we don’t have any funds to get actual umpires. Since we have not been paid yet a lot of players (mostly from his team) has left, and now since Mayden is gone some players are actually thinking about leaving within the next week. With this is happening Mayden has been opening tryouts to replace players. This last part is really what makes me believe this is a scam. So the donate page (before he took down the address). If you type P.O. Box 288696 Chicago, IL 60628 in google, you’ll see multiple web pages with the exact same P.O. box number including websites directed to the League, and of course http://www.theword247.info/The-Word.html Which is Mayden Ministries, and also Melvin Mayden Ministries: http://www.reachingthepeople.net/ . I ask for you’re help in exploiting Mayden regarding his involvement with this league. Everyone needs to know that if any league, camps, or anything associated with Michael E. Mayden should not be trusted unless proven otherwise. As of right now I am helping one of the players help raise some money to get other players a little bit of money, so they may return home if Mayden doesn’t come back in regards of player compensation.

I would hope with this email it would help inform players their decisions about coming into this new league. I really don’t want future players waste their money, and opportunity with this league. If this league is going to work it has to be run by someone other than Mayden.

Thank you for your time

Sincerely,

–Former National Urban Player

This is in no way the only message I’ve received. In fact, another former player messaged me a few nights ago urging me to check out the game being broadcast on Facebook Live… just so I could see the player in shorts umpiring the game behind home plate and hear the (silent and nonexistent) crowd.

A news article posted by the Clarion Ledger on June 22nd confirms the story:

LAUREL, Miss. — A south Mississippi baseball league aimed at black players says it may fold unless it can raise money.

The National Urban Professional Baseball Leaguetells WDAM-TV that it’s not attracting enough fans and sponsors to stay afloat. Michael Mayden, who leads the league, says he brought the league’s four teams to Laurel, thinking people would be attracted to the games.

Mayden’s goal was to develop players who could win college scholarships and professional contracts, renewing the supply of black players to baseball. But now the league has announced it could shut down within 10 days.

Laurel Recreation Director Elvin Lumer says he hoped the league would attract people from surrounding cities. He vouches for the league’s legitimacy and says the city supports it.

I hate to say, I called it but…. I was skeptical about this league from day one, and it only got worse every time I was ignored or disrespected when I voiced my concerns about the league to Mayden and to the few players that were constantly supporting him.

I want new leagues to succeed, but in this day and age, the chances of that are slim, especially when you have no actual baseball business sense or financial backing that you KNOW will cover the ENTIRE LEAGUE for the season.

Plus, there are already eight indy leagues with at least some credibility… plus every MLB team and their five or six affiliated teams per organization. How much more watered down will talent be in ANY new league that is starting? Don’t we want only the best players playing PROFESSIONAL baseball?

I’m tired of the start ups that clearly have no business running. I’m tired of kids get scammed. And this one is even worse, as Mayden clearly took advantage of already disadvantaged players.

*Update (6/26)* some players are broke, hungry and stuck in Laurel, MS. This weekend, some of the guys are putting on games to try to raise money for the ones who need it. If you are near the area, please help if you can!

A LOT of players and readers have been asking me for information on the National Urban Professional Baseball League (NUPBL).

Many articles have been appearing about this new indy league starting this summer… (stop me if you’ve heard this one before…). You can read all of these articles on their “Press Release” page on the official website.

It does appear that some players (I’ll assume they’re players in this league as there are no rosters) have been out in the community, and the league is trying to reach out to surrounding communities… That is always a plus.

The NUPBL claims to be a “rebirth” of the Negro leagues because African Americans have been “limited” in their opportunities to play baseball, while then stating in the next sentence that they are in “NO WAY” limited to only African American players.

To me, this is just sending a ton of mixed signals to what this league is trying to do.

I’ve reached out to the league multiple times, as I’ve also stated in my article back in November, but they have failed to respond to my questions – even the biggest scams in recent history had enough respect to email me back and give me BS answers. This league has decided to just ignore it.

That’s fine, but I can’t ignore reporting about them.

The only information I know about this league is what is provided on their official website, that just so happens to be full of grammatical errors and stock photographs.

The creation of this professional Baseball League is designed to provide family entertainment.This league will be dedicated to the generations of baseball players who were denied the opportunity to play baseball because of factors other than their ability to play the game of baseball.African American baseball players has been limited in their opportunity to participate in the game of baseball“America’s Pastime”on the high school, college and the professional baseball level.While this league in “NO WAY” will be limited to only African America players. We will seek out the best baseball players from across the United State and the World regardless of their ethnic back round.

The league in its initial conception will consist of four teams with plans for future expansion.

Play a seventy two game schedule betweenMay thru August in addition to play-offs

Team (s) will consist ofTeam managerCoaches24 players per teamTargeted ages for the team will be players 17 years old and older (that have completed or will be completing their H.S. eligibility).The players in this league will be paidScheduled to start in May 2018

We will form the teams by selecting players (not withstanding their racial back round) from across the United State and the World by way of open try-outs to be held at a number of sites (see tryouts).After the teams are formed the players that will makeup these teams will actively take part in pre-planned promotion activities.

The names of the teams in this league will reflect that of past Negro League players i.e. Rube Foster All-Stars, Satchel Paige All-Stars, and Josh Gibson All-Stars etc. To honor the history and memories of past African America baseball players (the same as the Negro League Museum in Kansas City, MO).

The main page states that games will be played at Wooten Legion Field in Laurel, Mississippi and USA Stadium in Millington, Tennessee.

Opening day is May 25th…

Will the players be paid? Will there be housing provided? Are stats going to be available?

There are no answers for that.

But… if you’ve paid more money for Season Tickets than I’ve ever paid for any another indy league, you can get free game day meals! The stock photos look delicious!

I’m not trying to make this league a joke, but it’s really hard to see this league as anything other than another fly-by-night, one and done league. Everything about this suggests the league is trying to take advantage of players.

I hope I’m wrong. I hope I can do an update in a couple months and say how successful this league is… that the players are taken care of, the fields are playable, players will be paid, and statistics will be posted.

I just don’t want players to get scammed again. I’ve seen it WAY too many times over the last few years. I care about players. I just want them to do their research and know what they’re getting into. I try to do as much research for them as possible, but some times, I just can’t get straight answers.

*Update* apparently the city in Tennessee has backed out. All games will happen in Mississippi.

I’ve also been told that the league does not want to give me any information.